In a communication system, a receiver receives a radio-frequency (RF) signal from a transmitter, and downconverts the received signal from RF to baseband using one or more mixers. Each mixer mixes the received signal with a local oscillator (LO) signal. An LO buffer is typically provided to buffer the LO signal before the mixer.
In the receiver signal path, the optimal sizes for the mixer and the LO buffer depend partially on the linearity requirements of the receiver. A larger mixer size tends to improve receiver linearity, while a smaller mixer size reduces power consumption. Employing a larger mixer size usually mandates a correspondingly larger LO buffer, as the size of the mixer directly determines the load on the LO buffer.
In conventional receivers, the sizes of the LO buffer and the mixers are fixed. It would be desirable to dynamically adjust the size of the LO buffer and/or mixers depending on the requirements of the receiver.